Photo by James Anderson
Syracuse, N.Y. – In trouble for much of the game, Syracuse (2-0) scored 50 points in the second half to get a comeback 79-66 win against St. Bonaventure (1-1) Tuesday night at the Carrier Dome.
St Bonaventure appeared to be on its way to giving Syracuse Head Coach
Jim Boeheim a 71st birthday gift he did not want to receive, a loss.
“I don’t want to lose on my birthday," Boeheim said after the game. "I don’t like that.”
This all changed when a team with young players was led to
victory by graduate students Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney. Each
scored 13 points in the second half. Gbinije finished with a game high 23
points.
St. Bonaventure controls
the first half
The first half was all Bonnies. After trailing 5-3 less than three
minutes into the game, they went on a 16-3 run to lead 19-8 with 11:54 left in
the first half. The eleven-point lead was the largest for St Bonaventure in the
game and the Bonnies reached it another three times in the first half.
Syracuse scratched back and Cooney made a layup for the last shot in the first half
giving him five points and cutting St. Bonaventure’s lead to six, 35-29.
St. Bonaventure shot 6-16 from behind the arc and won the
rebound battle 22-15. The Bonnies had 12 points off turnovers and nine second
chance points coming off nine offensive rebounds. The Orange had just three second
chance points off six offensive rebounds.
"I thought in the first half we did what we wanted to do, both offensively and defensively," Bonnies' head coach Mark Schmidt said. "We did a good job on the backboard and took care of the ball for the most part."
Second half swing
The first five minutes of the second half looked to be setting up
for a Bonnies win. Every time the Orange
closed the gap, the Bonnies drained a well-timed 3.
With about 15 minutes left Denzel Gregg (11 points overall)
slammed one home to push St. Bonaventure’s lead back up to double digits at 45-35.
But Syracuse went on a 34-14 run over the next 10
minutes.
“Defensively, they did a better job going out on our shooters," Schmidt said. "We didn’t get a lot of easy baskets. We had some opportunities in the second half, some offensive rebounding, that we didn’t get – some offensive put-backs that hurt us."
The crowd inside the Carrier Dome erupted when freshman
Tyler Lydon drained a three-pointer to tie it up at 54 with 9:03 remaining.
“(He) is just so good as a freshman,” Gbinije said. “He
definitely got the gym rolling, he told me it felt good (making the three.)”
The dome got even louder when a turnover by Bonaventure led
to Cooney making a traditional three-point play by driving the lane and hitting the bucket and the free throw with 8:34 left.
"We honestly didn’t come out the first half and play like we wanted to," Cooney said. "Games like this help you for the conference games. You’re going to get down and be in tough spots and it's how you respond and fight out of it like we did."
Syracuse never gave up the lead again. The Orange pushed the lead to double digits before eventually winning by
12 - the largest lead of the night.
Shooting the three
The two teams combined took 56 shots from deep. St
Bonaventure went 11-32 making two of them late in the shot clock.
“The made eleven threes,"Boeheim said. "Two of them were pure luck, nothing
else,”
Syracuse went 9-24 for the game having only gone 4-11 in the
first half.
Notes
Tyler Roberson fouled out with 4:27 left in
the game but, led everyone in boards with 12.
Dion Wright and Denzel Gregg were the leading rebounders for the Bonnies with eight each.
The announced crowd of 21,379 included an active group of
St. Bonaventure fans. Gregg grew up in Syracuse and played for Nottingham High School before going to prep school.
Looking ahead
The Orange will be in the Carrier Dome again to take on
Elon (1-1) on Saturday Nov. 21.
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